<p>Hello- My son is looking at a quality state college and also Cornell for physics. My concern with Cornell is that if he
is offered substantial aid for the first year that the aid might decline in subsequent years. I had heard this as a generalization, not specifically applied to Cornell. Does anyone have experience with that? Does Cornell tend to keep aid the same each year, assuming the family's financials stay the same?</p>
<p>If he were accepted, we would hate to have to make him transfer to another college due because of declining aid.</p>
<p>Cornell tends to keep the financial aid the same each year, if the finanical aid factors stay the same, though pries do go up each year, and Cornell, like most all colleges expects the student to take an increasing responsibility for the school costs. There is no merit aid at Cornell, it’s all need based.</p>
<p>cpt, that is not my understanding. I believe if your EFC calculates to exactly the same with assets also the same, your expected amount to pay will be the same. That is to say if tuition goes up, your price does NOT go up. Why do you think this is not the case?</p>
<p>Financial Aid packages have nothing to do with total costs and increases in those costs most of the time through my understanding. They depend on EFC which is what they use to take away the difference between COA and your EFC. They fill that difference (cornell is almost 100% need met) with mostly grants and loans, depending on your income level. As long as your EFC doesn’t drastically change from year to year, you will not be expected to contribute more to your education, but that doesn’t include increases in loans and decreases in grants if the university policies change. You might want to talk to Cornell about it more specifically but I think that you will be paying roughly the same and getting roughly the same grant/loan package from year to year even with the increase in COA. Granted, what you might be referring to by “student’s increased contribution” is that the Student contribution portion of the EFC will probably go up somewhat. </p>
<p>COA IS total costs, so if your EFC is flat and the COA goes up, your financial aid package will go up. You have a good point on the “student’s increased contribution”. I hadn’t factored that in anywhere. Is that normal?</p>